More Best Recipes (America's Test Kitchen) [Hardcover]

Editors of Cook's Illustrated (Author)

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Product Description
The cooking geeks of America s Test Kitchen are back. Over the years, we've spent thousands of hours performing all sorts of kitchen tests in pursuit of a best recipe some of them so wacky, we ultimately abandoned the ideas. But sometimes our whatever-it-takes approach pays off. Back in 2004, we collected the results of our efforts, 1,000 foolproof recipes, into our flagship book The New Best Recipe. And these recipes are no joke. They work the first time and every time.

Ever since, we ve been working on our next collection, More Best Recipes, where we have developed new (and sometimes better) ways to make everyone s favorite foods. These are truly groundbreaking recipes that will change the way you cook such as supercrisp roast chicken, pan-seared thick-cut steaks, artisan-style bread that requires almost no kneading, and pie dough ANYONE can make. And while we were at it, we tackled popular recipes from around the world, looked into the best approaches to make-ahead cooking, scaled down recipes to serve two, and actually found a way to produce great meals from that ubiquitous 1970s appliance, the slow cooker. And because quality ingredients and equipment make a difference in good cooking, we offer dozens of unbiased product ratings from measuring cups, cutting boards, and standing mixers to balsamic vinegar, ricotta cheese, and breakfast sausage. With More Best Recipes, you ll get more of the best America s Test Kitchen has to offer: a wide-ranging repertoire of more than 600 recipes that work and honest, useful solutions to common cooking problems.

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Recipe Excerpts from More Best Recipes

Maple‐Glazed Pork Tenderloin

Skillet Apple Pie

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 800 pages
• Publisher: Cook's Illustrated (October 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193361546X
• ISBN-13: 978-1933615462
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.6 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #437,065 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

America's Test Kitchen is a 2,500 square foot kitchen located outside of Boston. It is the home of Cook's Illustrated and Cook's Country magazines and is the workday destination for over 3 dozen test cooks, editors and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes until we understand how and why they work and arrive at the best version. We also test kitchen equipment and supermarket ingredients in search of brands that offer the best value and performance. You can watch us work by tuning in to our public television show, America's Test Kitchen.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

97 of 99 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Concentrated Cooks Illustrated for new readers and non-collectors, September 30, 2009

By 

Brian Connors (Yarmouth, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: More Best Recipes (America's Test Kitchen) (Hardcover)

Those of you who complain about Cooks Illustrated's habit of redundant recipes between books, look elsewhere. Literally everything in this book is a rehash; I'm about to explain why this isn't necessarily a bad thing, and why CI fans probably don't need this book anyway.

This book is exactly as advertised: the best stuff from the last five years or so of the magazine. A lot of this stuff has been covered in the TV show books; for that, you want the 10th anniversary book, especially if you haven't bothered with ordering the last two years directly from the publisher or never got the first edition of The Best Recipe (where the first season was documented). And diligent collectors of the Best Recipe series will have all or most of these recipes anyway (some stuff, like Pizza Bianca or Almost No-Knead Bread, has as far as I know only appeared in the TV books and the magazine). But for the most part, this is a book for people who are just getting into the whole Cooks Illustrated thing -- something to be bought as a set with The New Best Recipe.

It does adopt a bit of the informality in some of the later Best Recipe books, showing recipes in part as problem domains as recipes in and of themselves. And chances are a lot of the recipes are just the sort of things you want collected all in one place like this. On its own it's worth the 4 stars; it just has a bit of a limited audience compared to some of its seriesmates. Get it for a new cook, or for someone who's just woken up to the geek side of the kitchen. But if you've been collecting CI books as long as I have, it probably isn't for you.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Huge Cook's, November 12, 2009

By 

wogan "the book reader" - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: More Best Recipes (America's Test Kitchen) (Hardcover)

This cookbook is huge, containing 762 pages of recipes and many useful tips. There are many repeats of recipes given in Cook's other cookbooks, so that is a warning. I wish that there was not a label of `ALL NEW' posted prominently on the cover, it hardly seems fair to do that.
The recipes are not too difficult, but not the everyday simplified comfort food.
The grilling instructions are especially good. Personally I loved the fact that I finally got the `griller' in our family to learn how to cook a well done hamburger without it being burned to a crisp. That alone was worth the price of this book.
There are a lot of great tips in here, so if you do not have many of the Cook's series it would be a wonderful addition or gift for someone. There are explanations of so much, even an experienced cook can use, such as supermarket cheeses 101, explaining among other things the best cheeses for budgets.
For a novice or experienced cook, the thoughts and explanations on cooking something such as French onion soup are amazing: a complex series of chemical reactions, explained simply.
Small instructional pictures are also one of the outstanding features of Cook's; how to assemble sticky buns, for example, there is no question on how to do the folding and shaping.
The breakfast recipes are wonderful,such as; French omelets, Hueves Rancheros. Two other outstanding sections are how to substitute ingredients 101 and Make Ahead Cooking.
As long as you know this is not really all new, or if you do not have previous Cook's books this is a fantastic addition to a cook's shelf.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars If you have any of the other books or the magazine, move on..., February 17, 2010

By 

jennifer blanton "Texan, yes an Aggie" - See all my reviews

This review is from: More Best Recipes (America's Test Kitchen) (Hardcover)

I do not review here, but I just had to speak up on this one.

If you have received the magazine or bought any of the other Cook's Illustrated cookbooks over the past 3 years, skip it. There is not a SINGLE thing new. No new research, no new color photography, not one single new recipe. I am both an avid cook and reader, so publications from Cook's are eagerly anticipated in my home, providing a fix for two of my favorite past times. Not this one. No rush to read, no marking of recipes to try, because there is NOT A SINGLE NEW thing in here.

Possibly, I was spoiled by Bittman's revision of How To Cook Everything; that was the type of 'More' I was expecting. An actual update, with additions, and an editing eye towards understanding how and why a devoted reader would appreciate an addition to 'The New Best recipe'.

All in all, I am disappointed, but it has a home on my shelf. If you only have 'The Best Recipe' or 'The New Best Recipe', by all means, be my guest. Although, quite honestly, 'The Best International Recipe', would be a much better addition to your shelf.